%0 Journal Article
%T Validation of a Targeted Peer Relations Scale for Adolescents Treated for Substance Use Disorder: An Application of Rasch Modeling
%A James R. Ciesla and Ping Yao
%J Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment
%D 2012
%I 
%R 10.4137/SART.S7367
%X The objective of this research is to use item response theory (IRT) to validate a 14-item peer relations scale for use in the adolescent treatment population. Subjects are 509 adolescents discharged from substance abuse treatment from 2004¨C2009. The person reliability is 0.76 and the Cronbach's alpha person raw score reliability is 0.93 both indicating the scale is a strong metric. The item reliability of 0.99 is high showing the model is reliable. The real separation (8.49) meaning items are placed on the Rasch ¡°ruler¡± with about eight levels of importance identified. The mean-square statistics of the infit and outfit values were between 0.5 and 1.5 for the items indicating a low level of randomness and thus unidimensionality of the scale. Inspection of a Wright Item Map shows the hierarchical structure of the scale with a moderate degree of inter-item spread. The analysis shows the scale is a reliable unidimensional metric.
%U http://www.la-press.com/validation-of-a-targeted-peer-relations-scale-for-adolescents-treated--article-a2773